Covenant

EXCERPT

It began on a Monday. At first it was only a gentle steady shower. Being spring, people were not surprised. In the sky appeared a panoply of colorful and see-through spheres and crumpled newspapers in all shapes and sizes. Commuters swore, forecasters grinned, and life went on.

On that day, Noah pulled apart his polyester daisy-sprigged kitchen curtains and instructed his children to begin packing. Standing tall in his tiny dinghy, Noah paddled out to his red peeling hulk of a scallop boat. While the rain trickled teasingly down his neck and into the sides of his shoes, he checked the engine, caulked the seams on the cabin roof, started the bilge pump, and filled up the porta-potty with fresh seawater. Then he brought it, shuddering and belching brown smoke from the stern, into the town dock.

Those living on the harbor were well used to Noah’s strange, often nocturnal, doings. But even they thought him mulish going out in such weather. From their warm living rooms they watched him, and shook their heads in unison.